Larry was in the middle of packing everything up for his big move next week to a new and smaller location. A few years’ worth of stock will remain in his new workshop, but his billets and some other large hardware is going into storage, including over a dozen Engelmann spruce billets with extensive bearclaw figuration. He told me that he is willing to sell some of this stock. This wood originated in the mountains of Northern Colorado. Larry told me the timber yard indicated the logs came from the largest spruce tree felled in 50 years. The logs were hand-split and have been dried over many years. This was a very old tree that grew slowly in the dry Rocky Mountain climate, which occasionally produces rare and exquisite bear claw figuration.

Since I was there to take pictures of the wood I picked for my guitars, including a bearclaw set from the same tree noted, I offered to take a few pictures of his Engelmann billets and distribute them in the Internet luthier forums. If you are interested, please email me and I will pass Breslin’s contact information along to you, since he’s in the process of moving. Larry will eventually sell some of these billets on eBay, so you may want to negotiate a price before they go up for auction.

Here are a few pictures of the set I chose for my “Poca Loca” flamenco and the billets from which she originates. The set is extremely light and very stiff, and the figuration is extensive:

I will post additional photos on my website soon, including closer pictures of the billets, etc. I will edit this post with the web page URL/address that contains this additional content after it is posted...

http://www.trentonscott.com/deerheadEngelmannBillets.shtml

Many of these billets are large and should yeild at least 10 sets. Bearclaw figuration pervades all the billets. Here are a few more photographs of my flamenco set, taken from the same stock: